7 tips for using Gmail from a former employee of Google

In 2011, Rudolf Dyutel got a job at Google. "My first day at Google's office resembled the arrival of Harry Potter at Hogwarts: strongly worried, like a schoolboy on the first date, what to do - is also unclear - says Rudolf memories. - So I was glad to any case given to me and the opportunity to learn something new in the process. "

The next two years he was destined to work closely on the training of employees with the mail service Gmail, as well as its corporate sales.

Dyutel no longer listed at Google, now it Buffer employee and founder Remotive project - electronic weekly for remote workers. However, some chips, which he taught his former colleagues, he is still in use.

How to Train Your email: 7 killer tips for using Gmail

Sometimes I open the folder "Inbox" Monday morning - a real revelation. It seems to understand the endless stream of letters is physically impossible.

E-mail today is not used except in remote villages, where there is no electricity or cell phone towers. According to the McKinsey Global Institute research, we spend on average one third of our working day responding to emails.

The average skilled worker spends up to 28% of productive time to parse email. This approximately 13 hours a week.

Of course, you do not want to agree with such a sad statistic. Moreover, everyone wants to spend their time on something more useful. To this end Dyutel spent a lot of time in testing the Gmail features, tools and services, highlighting the seven most useful, in his view, for daily use. Perhaps working correspondence - is not such a long case.

1. Use the button "Undo Send"

Have you ever had so that clicking "Submit", you suddenly noticed the letter several annoying typos? Sure, yes.

From now on, there is nothing to fear more: you have a function cancel sending, the use of which - strictly a prerequisite for those who have decided to engage seriously controlled precious working time.

You can activate by going to the menu and tick the appropriate function "settings» → «General» → «Undo Send". Optionally cancellation period can be equal to 10, 20 or 30 seconds.

Try it yourself, I liked it!

2. Use time-saving templates

We write a huge number of similar letters similar to each other like two drops of water. Sometimes we take as a basis for new emails are those that have already been written previously to others. For example, for sales workers it is convenient and can save significant time.

So why not prepare several templates for this kind of messages, instead of rewriting the same from time to time? After replacing a couple of words and phrases is much easier than writing from scratch. The main thing - do not forget to read later.

Prepare and store multiple templates of answers, which you can use later if needed.

To enable "Canned Responses" and go to the tab "Laboratory" in the settings menu.

Thanks to this incredibly useful function with brother Rudolf was able to manually send your contact information the first half Remotive thousands of subscribers in a standard letter-mailing.

3. Use the offline access

Another trick, which we learned from Dyutelya: how to continue to work with Gmail, without having access to the Internet.

Maybe someone of you like to disconnect from others at any time, to devote himself to creative tasks. However, in most cases without the folder "Inbox", where you, for example, got rid of the terms of reference, simply can not do. How to be?

For all train journeys, cases with paid or limited access to Wi-Fi networks and other unforeseen circumstances, you can use the "offline». It allows you to read, respond, search and archive emails without access to the Internet.

It is really very convenient, as this mode allows you to work not only with the post, but also c Google Drive and Google Docs.

4. You do not have time? Put on pause

At times, incoming messages are downright fall down into the box one after another, irritating and distracting from the work on which we are focused. One, two, four, ten new letters... And suddenly there anything important?

The best solution to this problem, according to Dyutelya proved to function "pause incoming»(Inbox Pause). The meaning of this function is very simple: pause the flow of incoming mail, if doing something important, and when freed from burden of care and Pestryaev events calendar, go back to them if they got into the same second by going to the page tab mail.

5. Unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists

So it turns out that it is difficult to completely get rid of getting all sorts of mailings to your work e-mail. How to get rid of those that you are not interested?

Explore Unroll.me - a tool that helps you organize the distribution well in a matter of minutes. Once you sign up for the service, open the mailing list to which you have subscribed. Then unsubscribe from unnecessary.

6. Turn-step verification

It seems, Gmail knows about us almost everything: with whom we communicate, what pictures are seeking to find what is stored in the "Documents". We can say that this is a mission control center and the main command headquarters - all links are here, like the roads in Rome. This means that security should take care of first.

The best way to cope with this task step verification feature. "Two-" because to protect your information need not only your password from the mailbox, but also a unique code that you do every time you try to access the mailbox will receive from a mobile application or SMS-messages.

And more Rudolph advises to pay attention to the service 1Password.

Many other popular services, such as Dropbox, Facebook and Twitter, as two-step authentication for access.

By the way, your data is important to ensure that your Gmail-account has not been used on several devices, such as two computers simultaneously.

7. Use informative notice

In many messengers used several status messages: "Sent", "Delivered", "Read." In some places, such as Facebook, to refer to these notices are used icons.

For Gmail service there is a similar solution - Sidekick. This is a good application for those who are looking for work, or someone whose activities are related to sales: very convenient to obtain the status of your sent messages.

Now that you know about the safety and economy of working time when using Gmail a little more. Hopefully, tips the experienced professional will help you become more productive.

Do you know any secrets about which said Rudolph? Tell us in the comments to this article!